11:59AM Jess McGuire | Alright. It’s nearly Christmas and if you’re even reading Defamer Australia instead of wrapping gifts and swilling festive season drinks, you’re probably at work and hoping to have your noggin turned toward mind-numbing hilarity and other things involving less heart and more gut-busting jocularity. We apologise for this post in advance, then. Because there’s no pithy punchline coming.
Defamer Australia’s Associate Editor Clem “Clam” Bastow forwarded this story to us – your humble and incredibly emotional at the best of times Piscean Editor – with the message “If you’ve not read it in the paper already, this actually made me cry!”
As a general rule, we view emails along these lines (even from our beloved Associate Editor/best mate) with an almost unhealthy amount of skepticism. In this case,
reading the article Clem forwarded on proved us wrong.
Angus Conners (is) fixed on his brand new daughter, Jemma Carmela, squirming and murmuring in his lap. He has an arm laid on each side of her and his hands, curled into useless half-fists, beside her head.
If he had time for regrets, it would be now: knowing that if she somehow wriggles and falls from his wheelchair he can’t catch her; that he couldn’t lift her up and give her all the kisses he wants; and that he’ll never be able to pull her in close in a hug.
But luck is what you make it. It can tip you over and break your neck. It can sneak up and hand you a cancer. It can take your boyhood dreams and slip them just out of reach and leave you thinking there’s no good future.
And you could let it.
Or you could sit out here with the last of the sun shimmering the stones on the near ridgeline until they sparkle like cognac diamonds and pink the happy bundle in your lap. And consider yourself the luckiest bloke out back of Bourke.
The tale of Angus Conners and Kate Madigan is beautiful, heartbreaking, inspiring, and head-spinningly wonderful in equal parts. We urge you with absolute sincerity to read the whole thing. We cannot think of a more amazing story – yes, a story sans Britney/Jamie Lynne/Anna Nicole/Lindsay/Kate Ritchie/Warwick Capper/celebrity homosexuals – to finish the year on.
Honestly. We’re being soft, but damn it… if you don’t muster up a tear or three when reading about this incredible family, then we have no time for you around these parts.
We’ve been moved to the point of choking back sobs – as Clem promised. And in this day and age, that’s a rare, rare thing.
Merry Christmas. Go and spend time with the people who mean the most to you, and let them know just how you feel.
(/end Oprah Winfrey-esque earnestness)
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